This has served me well in some instances, for example it has forced me to find elegant and simple solutions that require minimal effort and complexity to set up and function. I’ve also sought out 80/20 ratios in my life based on what I really want – not just what society says I should want – to build a lifestyle that most people would dream about.

However laziness isn’t always beneficial. It can lead to poor decisions that result in inefficiencies. Ironically, because I decide I don’t want to do something or try something new, I end up working longer, despite the fact that I decided not to make the change because I was lazy.

Laziness is like that sometimes, you don’t realize that just making a tiny effort at the start to change something will reduce your work load long term. The smart decision is in front of you, but inertia is powerful, sometimes you just can’t be bothered to do something new or different.

Today I have a perfect example of situation that if I made a simple change I could have saved myself some effort and no doubt made more money too. All I can say today is “better later than never“, as I have now made the change.

More importantly, you can make this change today and take advantage of something that all bloggers who use WordPress to sell affiliate products, should use.

There are some problems with that link, but before I tell you what they are, a quick refresher about affiliate links.

When I joined Perry Marshall’s affiliate system I gained access to an affiliate control panel where I could generate affiliate links for any of his products. In this case the real affiliate for his adwords ebook is –

What I did was manually create a HTML file that redirected to the above link, and then used the entrepreneurs-journey.com affiliate link above as the link on my blog articles.

Why do you do this?

For several reasons…

You can use that link in multiple places across your blog and if the real affiliate link ever changes you only need to update the one file to update the link across your entire blog.

This actually happened with Perry’s program as he switched to Infusionsoft to manage his affiliate program and all my links with him changed. When that happened I just updated the one file, rather than dig through my blog archives to find all the articles that contained that link, which would be a nightmare job.

The link is a lot more compelling from a marketing point of view. It’s got my domain and my name in it recommending it, so it’s more powerful in terms of copywriting persuasion than the raw ugly link you receive from the affiliate software.

In theory the link should be safer from other people stealing my affiliate credit for referrals. I personally never understood how this works, but I think it’s something to do with cookie stuffing which can mean your affiliate ID is replaced by another affiliate if the user has the cookie. Using your own custom link bypasses this problem. That’s my basic understanding of it anyway.

Those are some reasons to use an affiliate link redirect. I made the mistake of creating a stupidly long structure for my links, which became a problem when sending out emails as they would line break to fit the width settings of email clients, causing the link to break. I should have used a shorter link rather than the /yaro-recommends/ directly on top of an already long domain name.

The other major mistake I made was to create these affiliate links manually. I literally had to create a flat HTML file using a text ditor, and sometimes a new directory too, for all the affiliate links I created. That’s a lot of work for what should be a simple function.

My old system doesn’t provide any statistics on how many times my affiliate links are clicked, so I don’t know what my conversion rate is in terms of clicks to sales.

So What Does The Ninja Affiliate Plugin Do?

I knew about this plugin a long time ago. I knew there were better ways to manage my affiliate links. Simpler ways.

A long story short, I should have used this plugin from day one, but I was too “lazy” to get it installed.

Ninja Affiliate is a tool to create, manage and track affiliate links on your blog. It uses a very simple interface where you can paste in the raw affiliate link to create a redirect that looks however you want it to look.

For example I can make the word “AWeber” turn into my affiliate link for the AWeber autoresponder service, or even redirect to my review. This means I don’t have to manually make the word a link each time I write it in a blog article.

What’s even better is once you install and activate the plugin, it will retroactively apply affiliate links to keywords on your old blog posts if you want it to. All your past blog content can suddenly start making you money. That’s pretty powerful, especially if you didn’t have your affiliate game together when you started your blog and haven’t got the energy to go back and manually add links.

The plugin offers some nifty features to control how this works. For example you can set it to only convert the first two keywords in an article into affiliate links so your articles don’t look like spammy posts full of affiliate links.

For me though, the best feature is it adds a nice little drop down box into the page where you write blog posts that contains all the affiliate link redirects you have created.

You can then highlight a word in your blog post, select the appropriate affiliate link and instantly create the link. This is the kind of control I want over where I place affiliate links, and it makes the process a simple highlight and select process to apply affiliate links. This saves me time.

You Need This If You Are An Affiliate Marketer

This is not a free plugin (I’ve got a discount deal for you if you are quick – see below), but it’s not that expensive and you can easily recoup the cost with just one or two affiliate sales as a result of using it.

In my mind it’s a no-brainer to use this plugin if you are an affiliate marketer selling anything using affiliate links on your blog.

It’s not a complex plugin. It doesn’t do a lot, but what it does is powerful and makes my life easier.

Installation is two minutes. Like most plugins you just upload and activate, there’s very little to configure, you start making links and away you go.

There’s a few handy settings you can play with if you want to to control certain things, including cloaking links, it shows you referring pages links were clicked on (this is pretty cool – it displays what pages on your blog generate the most clicks), links can be made nofollow, and all kinds of other cool stuff.

If I had one complaint it’s that you have to pay for this plugin. We get spoilt with so many great free plugins, but obviously Max Blog Press (run by Pawan Agrawal) is a for-profit business who make great plugins, so charging a fee is understandable. You get what you pay for sometimes- and I’ve yet to experience a problem with this plugin.

Do You Want A Copy Of Ninja Affiliate For Your Blog?

Pawan was nice enough to offer a special discount of $30 off the normal price for this plugin for my readers, however the deal expires in 48 hours from the time I posted this review.

Here’s the affiliate link I created with Ninja Affiliate to promote this discount offer –

If you click that link you will be taken to a page where you can see all the features of the plugin, including a video showing you how it works, screenshots and examples, and an order button to buy it.

It’s $97 at full price, but if you act before the end of Friday the 29th of October USA time, you can get it for $67, a special just for my readers I arranged with Pawan.

58 Comments

The difference would be all the features that Yaro mentioned above. The tracking, automatic affiliate link insertion when you use a specified keyword, you have a dropdown menu with all your links as you are typing your post for easy insertion, to name a few.

I think the difference between this and the free plugins would be automatic conversion of keywords to links. So far as free plugins go, GoCodes is a really popular plugin that has most of these functionalities, except automatic auto conversion of keywords to affiliate links. And I guess that’s what makes all the difference.

Bought this plugin more then a year ago, found some bugs in it (your links can’t have a ( or – in it), reported the bugs, was told they weren’t bugs but features. After a few months they said they would start working on it.

The top link is the link in my article where I mentioned the plugin
The -articlebottom link is at the end of the article (so I can see who read down the entire article and clicked the link at the bottom)
The -banner link is in the middle of the article and links from an ad banner

If I were to ever talk about it in an email, I’d just do this
—.com/to/MaxBlogPress_Ninja_Affiliate_WordPress_Plugin-email

and it would automatically track that too.

I was in contact with them when they were developing this plugin and this was one of the features I requested. It was in some other click tracking product that was way expensive. It winds up being very cool because if you know your base links you can then just add a “-forumname” or “-emailOctober272010” whatever is appropriate to them and that new link will be tracked separately.

But for me I just want a link with link text “artistname – songtitle (abc remix)”. That is not possible. The URL where that link goes to can be whatever. It’s basic functionality which should not be broken by adding advanced features.

Anyway for me it is the lack of support and lack of bugfixes that bothers me most. Also you can’t trial this software to see if you’ll have problems with the plugin or not. I’ve also tried EzAffiliateCash, but that one had a bug that the length of your URL to redirect to is too limited… Also that plugin author doesn’t answer any mails and has abandonned plugin updates. So two times I have already paid for something I don’t use now… 🙁

I’ve purchased this plugin and used it for a while. It’s great for what it does, but Maxblogpress is terrible at updating their plugins. They take forever to update plugins when there’s an issue and there’s been tons of feature requests for ninja affiliate that have been ignored.

This is a paid plugin and I expect continuous development if I’ve paid for something. It seems the only efforts maxblogpress makes with ninja affiliate is promoting it.

There’s been only 1 update for ninja affiliate since July of 2009 and this 1 update was for “Fixed Activation bug in wordpress version 3.0”. No new features, etc.

Their other plugins like Banner Ads have been abandoned since July of 2009 as well, without even a true update for WordPress v3. Strip Ad has been unusable in mobile themes since forever and they still haven’t come out with a fix, with this plugin last updated February 2009.

Ninja Affiliate does what I want it to do with no bugs. If I was paying an ongoing monthly fee to use it then I’d definitely want to see more features added, but for the time being paying a one time fee for one service is good enough for me, especially since I use it almost every day.

I’ve been using Ninja Affiliate for quite some time now and to be honest I really love it! I usually don’t pay for wordpress plugins (as most of them are available for free) however Ninja Affiliate was worth every single dollars!

I am just investigating affiliate marketing to sell my downloadable video..just wondering whether I need to purchase both an affiliate marketing software as well as the plugin… or does the plugin do everything I need it todo to setup and facilitate affiliate marketing?….

If this is a complement product, then could you recommend a reputable affiliate marketing software which you use etc.. I intend to me doing a lot of business with people in the states and UK, so if it is recogniseable to them then that would be a bonus…

Laura, I suggest you watch the videos about what this plugin does. It sounds like you don’t understand the different between an affiliate program for a product, and this plugin which helps you manage the affiliate links.

If you want to have your own affiliate program to sell your own product, that’s a completely different story. Get yourself a clear picture of what does what before making any decisions.

E-Junkie is a great service and is cheaper than just about anything else out there that I’ve seen for a hosted shopping cart. It doesn’t have some of the more powerful features but it’s a great starter cart.

I am already familiar with Pawan’s Ninja Affiliate Plugin for a few years. It’s a great affiliate plugin for WordPress users and serious affiliate marketers.

But the specialty of your post is – you provided clear understanding of this plugin. If someone looking for this kind of tool, he or she gets a clear idea of this plugin after reading your post specifically what it actually is and how it actually works.

I think your post is simpler and easier to understand than the sales page of this plugin itself. That’s the beauty of your review. Great work!

I don’t know Yaro, I hope these guys didn’t rush into this whole new product launch before they were prepared or anything?

I just used your link to go and purchase this plugin, I paid with Paypal, and their page just froze up, took my $67 bucks and gave me no plugin!

I put in a ticket with this site immediately after, even cut and pasted my full Pay Pal receipt showing they just took my $67 bucks, but no response? No money…No plugin? I hope this product does what it’s supposed to, when I “eventually” get it that is!……I hope??

Well, when I read comments about Pawan’s poor level of customer service and non-responsiveness, I have to let you know that I now understand folks frustrations unfortunately!

My goodness, this guy’s customer service ethic is in a word, unimpressive.

Since I purchased this plug-in, had the $67 bucks sucked out of my Pay Pal account, and did not receive the product, I have now submitted TWO support tickets to his customer support center, both with “critical” level priority, and have heard nothing from him! Not even a polite email informing me they received my ticket LoL!

It has been 8 hours now! Money gone, and not a peep from Pawan! Lovely service ethic.

At this point I really have to wonder if I’m going to have to start the whole dispute process with Clickbank and Pay Pal just to get my cash back…Of course, I be perfectly happy with the product itself, or even an email from Pawan informing me he’s thinking about…..Ahhhh, something!

Personally think your being a bit harsh. The issue was likely with PayPal or your internet connection and as for support, I typically get a response between 1 hour and 48 hours with all products, it just depends when you email them, if they are office hours (different time zones), how many other emails and I would even go to say, how you address yourself in the email. If you were to email them in a horrible way, I wouldn’t personally see you as a priority, work with people not against them.

Also, if it’s the money your paniking about, PayPal and Clickbank cover you, so don’t worry – you got 60 days before your refund period ends.

But no, I do not think I’m being a bit harsh at all! This is a business Pawan is supposed to be running, right?

When a customer orders a product, when the money is accepted, most customers have a reasonable expectation of receiving what they just paid for in a timely manner? Or is this asking too much of Pawan? I don’t know, rhetorical question?

It has now been 18 1/2 hours since I sent the first email through his “customer support” service center, then I sent a follow-up email 4 1/2 hours after the first!

Was I rude in the email? Not at all! I simply stated the facts of what transpired, and that I would like my product! Am I asking too much?

I have been ordering product online since 2001, this scenario has only happened to me one other time, but you know what? The vendor promptly responded to my first email within 1 hour and provided me with a link to obtain the product I just purchased from him! That’s how customer service is “supposed” to work! That’s how one maintains a good reputation among consumers in ANY market place.

Did someone not mention this to these folks? I don’t know?

But to have to rely on Clickbank or Pay Pal to recover my funds is a tactic I would think should only have to be used when one is dealing with scammers or other nefarious types on the web, not a supposedly legit business, such as the one Pawan is supposed to be running….Again, feel me on this?

I can live without the $67 bucks for awhile if I must, I do make pretty decent money online, and have worked online exclusively for since 2008, and frankly am appalled
at the level of customer service and support I’m seeing now from these folks. If I were to incorporate this level of service into my business I probably wouldn’t be in business for too long, just a fact, not trying to be “too harsh,” just being real.

just to update you I finally got a response, got my email to access and download the product. So 22 hours to respond to a critical level customer support ticket is not to impressive, but at least Pawan delivered.

Still, anyone who actually views their online activities as a “real” business and not a hobby should quickly learn the value of good customer service. I’m sure you (Yaro) know exactly what I’m talking about on that note, I just wish others would learn as well.

I bought the plugin with your link, and on your recommendation, was billed the discounted price, all very nice, but no plugin. I was unable to download the product due to a technical error, so I was told. I tried contacting them from their website, and in order to do so, I had to register before submitting a ticket. I then had an endless problem with the captcha. I’m not blind, but I may as well have been, for all captchas were invalid.

Best not to recommend this plugin until the creators improve their non existent service.

Regarding the captcha, we didn’t use to have that captcha in the past. Initially it was fine but after a while we started to receive huge number of spam tickets. Ultimately, we had no choice but install the captcha to get rid of the robot spam posters.

Yes Pawan, thank you very much for attending to this matter personally, that does say a lot actually!

But very true, I know you are in GMT 5:45 time zone, which means you should have gotten my ticket around 3:44 pm your time, which is why I could not figure out what delay in response could be do to. It is of course very frustrating when any customer does not receive a response after making a purchase, I’ve been on your end as well in these matters, and often I’ve found a prompt email, even when explaining when the customer can expect a response often goes a long way.

But thanks again for getting this taken care of, and I sincerely hope you are able to get those bugs worked out on your end.

I’m another customer having this problem. Can’t download the plug-in. Do I have to do something else (other than a ClickBank support ticket, which so far hasn’t worked), or will this message to you trigger something?

I’ve been thinking of this plugin for a while Yaro, I first saw this demonstrated on John Chow’s Blog. Excellent and no brainer plugin, especially for the lazy and it does encompass the 80/20 rule perfectly.

Another good script is Will Mattos EZ Redirect Script, I’ve got this and you can choose what type of redirects you do. I have this one and love it. It’s not a plugin but it does handle your affiliate links perfectly so if the link changes, you change it at one source like the N.A.P. Really nice, but I want to N.A.P as it’s a no brainer.

Hey Yaro
Excellent post. I love how you give a review exactly as if you were just talking to a friend. So no hype with pros and cons. I’m really tempted to switch over to this plug in but there’s one thing stopping me. I’ve been using mike Filsaime’s Power Link Generator for years. I like it because I can create the one link and then use it anywhere really, which I suppose this one does too. Like you though, I set it up to have too long a url so it can cause hassles. One thing that has happened lately though is virus protection software customers have on their computers is blocking the links and saying it is a dangerous link. I guess because of the redirecting.
Do you know if the same thing happens with this one?
Also, can you add extra data into the fields for admin purposes? In PLG I can put the affiliate log in link, username, password, comments etc which is great when running a virtual team because all this data is in the one place.
LOVE the idea of automatically creating links for keywords. That is very, very cool.
Thanks Yaro